Bentonville Teen Renovates Van, Plans To Travel U.S. For Humanitarian Work

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BENTONVILLE (KFSM) -- While his friends are off to college in a couple of weeks a Bentonville High School graduate has decided to take the road less traveled.

Dylan George is taking a cross-country journey to find out what poverty is truly like in America.

Dylan George and his dad Don have spent 400 hours renovating a van for Dylan to travel the country in. The van has running water and is completely solar-powered.

He says after graduating school at Bentonville High he told his dad he wanted to take a year off school rather than going to college. His parents agreed, but with conditions.

"After high school, me and my brother each got a choice to take a gap year or go straight to college and if we took a gap year we would have to do something to help someone else," said George.

On August 12th Dylan will load up the van and head out on a journey across the country.

"I'll be working at like food shelters and like helping homeless and doing stuff like that," said George.

Another part of this journey includes creating a documentary, he'll let his passion for filming dictate what kind of documentary he'll put together.

"I'm not sure which subject Iwant to do yet, either the homeless or the unemployment rate, whenever I get out on the road I'll see what I want to do," said George.

Once he finds a story centered around poverty and that he thinks needs to be shared with the world, he'll get to work. It may take some time to find but with 50 states on the route he'll have plenty to experience and many stories to tell.

"I will be doing 20 hours of community service a week in every state I go to," said George.